


california sunshine

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 22:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1321600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maymo's stronger than he looks, and he's always there to catch Rafa when he falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	california sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after Rafa's unexpected third-round loss to Alexandr Dolgopolov in Indian Wells, California.

Maymo’s sitting on the sofa when Rafa gets back to their hotel suite, his reading glasses perched on his nose and his mouth doing that little frowny pouty thing as he looks down at his notebooks. The afternoon California sun is golden on his skin, and he’s wearing one of the new shirts Nike sent over, the one that simply has Rafa’s name on his chest. Rafa suddenly wants nothing more than to bury his face in it, in either skin or shirt, it doesn’t matter, as long as it smells like Maymo and not like the rueful sting of defeat.

(He minds losses less when he’s just been outplayed - it’s not like Australia, it’s not the impotent frustration of your body refusing to let you compete like you want to, it’s just, ugh, the normal disappointment of missed opportunities and wasted chances - but Rafa will never learn to be okay with losing.)

He drops his bag by the door, heavy sound in the stillness. 

Maymo looks up, mouth already curving up into a smile, eyes lighting up, just as he would if Rafa was a triumphant victor, as he usually is, because it’s not about that with Maymo, it’s not about winning and losing – except as much as everything with Rafa is about winning, because Rafa likes winning and he really doesn’t like losing (and he’s not exactly had the opportunity to get used to it) – it’s about the sheer instinctive joy of seeing Rafa again, the soft light of affection and the little spark of laughter that Rafa hopes never fades.

Rafa shuts up his never-ending internal monologue – why do they think he has so many on-court rituals, his brain never shuts up, centering himself on court and finding moments of stillness to focus his brain are all-important – in favor of striding across the room and swinging a leg over Maymo’s, settling himself in Maymo’s lap with an audible exhalation, coming to rest.

“You’re crushing my notebooks,” Maymo says, after a beat, reprovingly. He can’t keep his mouth straight, though, so Rafa leans down to kiss it, half desire and half impatience.

He doesn’t care about the notebooks, not right now, but Maymo prods him in the ass until he reluctantly half-stands long enough for Maymo to pull his notebooks out and drop them on the floor. Rafa doesn’t stop kissing him, though, and as soon as Maymo’s got the notebooks out he sits back down, pressing Maymo into the back of the sofa, slipping a hand up against the soft cotton of his shirt, feeling the heartbeat under his fingertips.

“Too heavy,” Maymo says against his lips, complainingly, but his hands are warm and sure on Rafa’s hips, and Rafa’s seen him work out at the gym, he knows Maymo can deal with a lapful of boyfriend. He presses closer, and Maymo bites back a sound, and Rafa grins.

He could make out on the sofa like this for hours, slow and warm in the late-evening sunshine, but not after a loss. Not when Indian Wells was such a glorious win last year – confetti in his hair, triumphant return, harbinger of a fantastic season – and this year he went out to fucking Dolgopolov. Not Stan again (he’d been looking forward to thrashing Stan, actually, not because he hates him, he’s a nice guy, but because there are things that should not happen, and one of them is Stan taking sets from him, let alone beating him, let alone robbing him of a Grand Slam), not Roger, not Novak, no, fucking _Dolgopolov_ with his _ponytail_ and his stupid erratic…

Maymo bites his lower lip and Rafa growls, presses his fingers against the nape of Maymo’s neck, hard. “Fuck me,” he says, low and sure, a filthy caress into Maymo’s ear.

“Fuck,” Maymo says, helplessly, his hands tightening on Rafa’s hips, then, automatically, “Not during a tournament…” 

He cuts himself off, but Rafa’s already sucking in a breath at the unwelcome reminder. No need to worry about that now. No match play until Miami, _Miami_ , and that more than a week away, while everyone else keeps fighting for the title here. No confetti for him this year, no pretty trophy and grinning Ellison and tanned California legions happily applauding, no gauntlet thrown down to the Tour. Just a fucking loss in the third round, to _Dolgopolov_.

But Maymo didn’t mean it, and Rafa has plans for Maymo’s dick, so he just nips Maymo’s ear in mingled punishment and forgiveness, and murmurs “Bed,” in his most seductive gravelly voice. 

He’s not sure how good the voice actually is, but it makes Maymo shudder underneath him and tug his head back by his hair in order to kiss him again, hot and desperate, so he’s counting it as a win.

When he was younger, he would’ve probably dropped to his knees, pushed Maymo’s apart, gone straight in and made Maymo bite his own hand trying not to alert everyone in lower California to the goings-on in this particular hotel suite. Rafa gives glorious head, if he does say so himself, because he’s very enthusiastic and Maymo’s obsessive-compulsive about recording things and making them better in all his endless notebooks, and together these two things work out very well for them.

But now his knees have their own notebooks, much less fun ones, and even when Maymo would occasionally let him, it was kind of hard to fully enjoy the awesomeness of sucking Maymo’s frankly fantastic cock when its owner was frowning worriedly down at him half the time. So Rafa has to make do with various other blowjob positions, which are all well enough but not as awesome, and none of which work as well for storming into a hotel suite after a frustrating day on the tennis court and basically throwing yourself on your boyfriend’s dick.

Besides, Rafa really just wants one thing today, and since he’s been knocked out of the tournament by a Ukrainian with a permanent bad hair day, there’s nothing to stop him getting it. 

“C’mon, fuck me,” he says, hearing the beginnings of a whine in the back of his throat, pushing closer. “Titín,” he says, against Maymo’s throat.

Maymo sucks in a breath. “Get off me, then, you big lunk,” he says, unevenly. “I’m not carrying your ass to bed.”

He could do it, Rafa knows. Maymo’s small, but he’s strong, and Rafa’s also not as heavy as he used to be, because of the knees and needing to lose weight to create less stress on them. But perhaps better not to risk it. Toni would kill them both if Rafa broke a wrist and his excuse was, “uh, Titín dropped me trying to carry me to bed to fuck me”.

Rafa gets off Maymo’s lap. He pulls off his shirt for good measure. It lands on top of the notebooks, and Maymo would usually bitch at him for being a slob, but right now his eyes are devouring Rafa’s abs, so Rafa thinks he’s okay. For now. Later can deal with itself.

Later, he’ll think about Miami. Later, he’ll decide whether to go straight there, or take a few days here in golden California to play golf and sleep late in the curve of Maymo’s arm and store up lazy moments of happiness against the times when he’s stressed and tired and facing 15-40 on a day when his first serve won’t go in. Miami, and then Europe again, and clay – clay, which he loves, but which he’s expected to win everything, every single tournament, or it’s a catastrophe and the sky is falling. He wants Monte Carlo back. He wants another Roland Garros trophy. He wants to win, always, even though he knows it’s not possible, even though he’ll always have moments like this, disappointed and trying to forget. 

He reaches a hand down to Maymo, pulling him upright. 

Maymo’s smiling, still looking sexy as fuck in those reading glasses, and despite his impatience to skip straight to the part where Maymo fucks him hard enough to feel it tomorrow, Rafa can’t help lingering for a moment, looking down at him. “Hey,” he says softly, meaninglessly, and tips Maymo’s chin up to kiss him again, less demandingly this time.

“I’m going to do great in Miami,” he says, when they break apart again. He can feel Maymo’s fingers in the waistband of his shorts, just dipping underneath, proprietary and affectionate and sure all at once. He can see the amused curve of Maymo’s lips, the long sweep of his eyelashes, the turned-on flush of his neck. He can smell the clean shampoo they share.

“Yes,” Maymo says, his eyes sure, the belief caught between them, “you are.”

Perhaps he will. Perhaps he won’t. But whatever happens, he’ll give it a good fight, and isn’t that pretty much all you can ask for?

Maymo pinches his ass and tells him to get a move on, and Rafa throws back his head and laughs, free and clear.

~//~


End file.
